tty2rpi Add-On (shows core based pictures and videos on a HDMI or DSI display)

[MiSTer Consoles]

I can't believe you were able to get those changes to the screensaver in so quickly. Absolute perfection. Bravo!

[MiSTer Consoles]

Hi all. I modified a couple of my 3D printed enclosures for MiSTer to incorporate 5" HDMI screens powered by the Pi Zero 2 W and wanted to share a few pics. Normally my cases have a 3" display powered by an Uno board and running TTY2TFT software. I must say that these new larger displays are really a sight to behold. The extra real estate and higher quality of these screens is super impressive, especially now that game artwork can be displayed. Needless to say that my other consoles are a little bit jealous. A million thanks to RealLarry for making all this possible!

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[RealLarry]

Woah! My wife would say that bigger is always better! And she's always right.

[MiSTer Consoles]

LOL! I'm definitely a believer in the philosophy "go big or go home!".

[metalfacemark]

I’m new to this with the display, is it possible to get the hdmi display out on a mini monitor while having vga crt for the main display?

I have a pihat for the Roland midi, can this do that and this or would I have to switch pies when setting this up?

[RealLarry]

I’m new to this with the display, is it possible to get the hdmi display out on a mini monitor while having vga crt for the main display?

I have a pihat for the Roland midi, can this do that and this or would I have to switch pies when setting this up?

...I think I don't get it what you are asking for. But before you are trying to run tty2rpi on a mt-32pi or on the MiSTer itself: No, not possible (not to say impossible). tty2rpi is a totally independent device. Doesn't have to be a Raspberry Pi, any device which can run a Linux OS is enough.

[metalfacemark]

i was just wondering if i could have combined the MT32 which has a pi already with ttyrpi - ive got a spare pi anyway so its not a big deal, appreciate the response though!

[RealLarry]

i was just wondering if i could have combined the MT32 which has a pi already with ttyrpi - ive got a spare pi anyway so its not a big deal, appreciate the response though!

tty2rpi on the mt32-pi isn't possible (in the actual form). The latter is using a "Bare Metal OS" which has only its tools and libs implemented and hasn't any possibility to add any (way more complex) other stuff.

mt32/GM on a tty2rpi setup (complete OS) would be possible and not that hard to realize, but this isn't a feature I'm going to implement (but everyone is free to implement it themselves). But keep in mind that mt32/GM emulation is a very time critical thing.

[metalfacemark]

Thank you, ive found my spare pi - so ill have a crack over the weekend at setting it up.

[RealLarry]

Thank you, ive found my spare pi - so ill have a crack over the weekend at setting it up.

Great, have fun! And don't hesitate to ask if something doesn't work...
What display (format/dimension) are you going to use?

[metalfacemark]

Thank you, ive found my spare pi - so ill have a crack over the weekend at setting it up.

Great, have fun! And don't hesitate to ask if something doesn't work...
What display (format/dimension) are you going to use?

ive got an ipad screen with hdmi that i planned to use just for testing and if i can get it all working ill get one of the marquee looking ones to replace it.

[RealLarry]

Thank you, ive found my spare pi - so ill have a crack over the weekend at setting it up.

Great, have fun! And don't hesitate to ask if something doesn't work...
What display (format/dimension) are you going to use?

ive got an ipad screen with hdmi that i planned to use just for testing and if i can get it all working ill get one of the marquee looking ones to replace it.

That is one solution. But you could also use your standard flatscreen TV (if you own one) for testing...

[thorr]

Hi RealLarry: I ended up making my own version of this same project (see page 1 where I started talking about it) because I knew I could do it and wanted to have that journey of getting it all working, but I also didn't want to stomp on what you were doing for the community so I just went down my own path and kept it to myself. It works great with the MiSTer and is very easy to use and is completely flexible because it calls a script that can be customized per game. Right now by default, all I have to do is drop either jpg or png files into a folder on the Pi with the same name as the core and it displays it. I can easily make it play videos or cycle through images. I will probably automate this as well eventually by looking for multiple filenames like corename-01.ext corename-02.ext, etc. that tells the script what to do in what order and then loops, and have options to only play some things once, etc. (again part of the file name like corename-01-once.ext and corename-02-repeat.ext). Then I won't have to customize the scripts per game.

However, now that GroovyMAME is here, I also want to get it working with Mame. Essentially what I need to do is scp a file named CORENAME (if I recall correctly) from my Windows PC to my Raspberry Pi, and the Pi takes care of the rest. Do you have any tips on how to get the running game name into a file that I can then scp to my pi? Thanks!

[RealLarry]

Hi RealLarry: I ended up making my own version of this same project (see page 1 where I started talking about it) because I knew I could do it and wanted to have that journey of getting it all working, but I also didn't want to stomp on what you were doing for the community so I just went down my own path and kept it to myself. It works great with the MiSTer and is very easy to use and is completely flexible because it calls a script that can be customized per game. Right now by default, all I have to do is drop either jpg or png files into a folder on the Pi with the same name as the core and it displays it. I can easily make it play videos or cycle through images. I will probably automate this as well eventually by looking for multiple filenames like corename-01.ext corename-02.ext, etc. that tells the script what to do in what order and then loops, and have options to only play some things once, etc. (again part of the file name like corename-01-once.ext and corename-02-repeat.ext). Then I won't have to customize the scripts per game.

However, now that GroovyMAME is here, I also want to get it working with Mame. Essentially what I need to do is scp a file named CORENAME (if I recall correctly) from my Windows PC to my Raspberry Pi, and the Pi takes care of the rest. Do you have any tips on how to get the running game name into a file that I can then scp to my pi? Thanks!

That is what my project is for: Fork it and do it another way or simply better
I'll collect my scripts for MAME usage later this day. It's already working great since a long time, but my MAME arcade machine is build around Linux only, which means that these techniques and scripts may not work an Windows.

[RealLarry]

However, now that GroovyMAME is here, I also want to get it working with Mame. Essentially what I need to do is scp a file named CORENAME (if I recall correctly) from my Windows PC to my Raspberry Pi, and the Pi takes care of the rest. Do you have any tips on how to get the running game name into a file that I can then scp to my pi? Thanks!

I'm starting MAME with its option "-output network". This way MAME opens a listening local network socket on port 8000. On the same machine one of my scripts starts "netcat" (nc) which waits for one received packet and after receiving one it scans the data for specific keywords:

Code: Select all

while true; do
  MAMEOUT="$(nc -W1 localhost 8000 | tr -c '[[:print:]]' ' ')"          # output of MAME
  MAMECMD=$(echo ${MAMEOUT} | cut -d " " -f 1)                          # 1st param: command
  if [ "${MAMECMD}" = "mame_start" ] ; then
    CORE=$(echo ${MAMEOUT} | cut -d " " -f 3)                           # core's name
    [ "${CORE}" = "___empty" ] && CORE="MENU"
    if ! [ "${CORE}" = "${LASTCORE}" ]; then                            # only if != LASTCORE
      logger "tty2rpi - show core ${CORE%.*}"
      echo "CMDCOR,${CORE}" > ${TTY2RPI}                                # show media
      LASTCORE="${CORE}"
    fi
  fi
  sleep 0.5
  [ -z $(pidof mame) ] && exit 0                                        # MAME still running?
done

That's all what I'm doing.